I checked in a dictionary and 밤 seems to be translatable in either ‘evening’ or ‘night’ in English. As far as I know, evening is the time from 6 pm to 12 am and night is the time from 12 am to 6 am. Or is this difference not that strict in English? I think for translations to other language it would be good if the distinction is made more clear because it can get confusing.
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You’re not wrong, but it’s mostly reliant on the context. In most languages, a lot of rules are dropped when speaking because the language has changed over time.
When saying something like “Let’s go see a movie tonight” (whether in English or Korean), it’s assumed that you’re referring to the evening, rather than the time between midnight and 6 a.m.
Just out of curiosity, are there any specific languages you’re referring to?
Yes, in English the difference is not as strict as in other languages. Remember West Side Story? The famous song “Tonight, tonight, I’ll see my love tonight”?
They mean they are going on a date that evening, not sneak out of the house past midnight.
In Italian and in French we never say “tonight I’m going on a date”, we will say “stasera, ce soir”
and not “stanotte, cette nuit”. Unless of course it’s a secret rendez-vous or you are vampires.
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I’m German and there are many different things you need to know when yout alk about “evening” and “night”
The German Language has:
-“Morgen” Eng: Morning (A time from 5 am to 11:30 am)
-“Vormittag” Eng: Pre noon (A time between 6 am and 11:30 am)
-“Mittag” Eng: Noon (A time between 11:30 am and 3 pm)
-“Nachmittag” Eng: Afternoon (A time between 3 pm and 6 pm)
-“Vorabend” Eng: Pre evening (A time between 17:30 pm and 8 pm)
-“Abend” Eng: Evening (A time between 8 pm and 10 pm)
-“Nacht” Eng: Night (A time bwetween 10 pm and 5 am)
And to it there are many many ways of telling a person wich part of the day it is and often it even depents on where in Germany you are from.
Mostly you will see people say “moin” in north Germany to tell you “Hello” in the meaning of “Hello in the morning” while many other people say “Guten Morgen” wich means “good morning”. There is even a way to tell people the same thing in the evening “Guten Abend” wich means word by word translated “Good evening”. And than there are many many cultural things to greet a person like “Mahlzeit” (eng: “time to have lunch” but more like if you would say “hello” to someone around noon) But besides polite forms to greet someone “Guten Tag”, “Guten Abend”, “Gute Nacht” or “Guten Morgen” than there are things who arn’t bound on the time of the day like “Hallo” for example and than there are informal ways to greet someone like “Hi” or “Hey” and slangwords to greet someone like “Yo” , "Was geht?, “Na?”… and so one
The thing with greeting someone even exist when you want to say good bye to someone who is tired and wants to go to bed. Instead of saying something like “see you” or “good bye” wich means “Wir sehen uns” and “Auf wiedersehen” or “Tschüss” in German you say “Gute Nacht” (Eng: Good night)
I could list more details, but than the whole website would explode… ^^
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@youraverageangel For this question, I was mainly referring to the Dutch language since that’s the language I sub in.
When I see a scene in a Korean movie outside that takes place during the evening/night the sky is always dark already. I don’t know what time the sun sets in Korea, but in the Netherlands the sun sets really late in summer. Maybe subbers are confused because of that and think that the time must be really ‘night’ because it’s dark outside.
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@emmelie96 there is an website for this. Based on Seoul it said that the sunrise today was 7:11 am in the morning and the sunset was 18:09 pm in the evening. On Jeju Island the sunrise was 7:18 am and the sunset 18:11 pm
There is a whole calender which includes a lot od different forecasts saying in Seoul (August) the sunrise would be 5:20 am and the sunset 19:30 pm …
In Germany you would expect in August sunrise 5:00 am and sunset like 22:30 pm
That’s interesting 
So in Dutch, there’s no word that can mean both night and evening? Because in English, Arabic and French (the languages I speak), night and evening are easily interchanged.
I guess in that case, you would have to use whichever word makes sense in your language so that the viewers aren’t confused.
I don’t know about Arabic, but in French “bonsoir” and “bonne nuit” are not said interchangeably. When you go on a movie/dinner/opera date with someone, you greet them with “bonsoir” and when you leave to go home to sleep you wish them “bonne nuit”. You cannot really say “bonne nuit” when first meeting the person, even if it’s very late. Because you are wishing the person to have a good whole night, meaning from then until morning.
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I didn’t know that. Thanks 
When you think of it that way, I guess the terms aren’t interchangeable in English either lol.
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Hmm… In English I’ve often heard “tonight” meaning “this evening”, as I said in my previous post. English is peculiar that way.
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Ah a little notice for everyone who was reading my comment about the thing in German:
It is really really rude to greet people who arn’t your close friends with Slangwords, what means like: When someone you don’t know or you arn’t that close too comes to you like “Ey Diggah” or “Was geht ab?” than they arn’t beeing seriously to you and sometimes you can even see that they are trying to fool you maybe.
When you are female and a random guy comes across you and says something like “Hey Perle”, “Na Süße”, “Hey Lady”,… and so on. Than that means that they don’t want to be siriously to you and just want to have an easy flirt.
Oh and by the way, I now came a cross a little bit funny German word, while I was writting a coment on another website and so if you want to know:
All German words to describe a dog as a “dog”:
Hund -> Dog
Hündchen -> A small dog or a Puppy
Hündin -> Female dog
Rüde -> Male dog
Welpe -> Puppy
Fiffi -> small dog
Köter -> Rude word to a small dog you don’t like
Töle -> Rude word to a bigger dog you don’t like
Wau Wau -> “Woof woof” mostly used by children who can’t say “Hund” or used as a cute way to say something where you inclued a dog, but in a way between “aaw so cute” and “urg just a dog ya know”
Kläffer -> “yapper” to describe a dog (mostly a smaller one) who barks a lot
Vierbeiner -> “quadruped”
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Usually while translating there is context, so based on the context I usually choose between “night” and “evening” in my native language. So “let’s go see a movie tonight” becomes “Let’s see a movie this evening”. I think evening can be used for a longer time span than night, so when in doubt I use evening. For example if I say “I go hang out with friends this evening” than this can also go on until after midnight.
@thegazettechan I seriously have never heared anyone in modern days say “Vorabend” ^^ unless it’s the evening before the actuall day